Hi,

I am trying to create a setup MSI file for my multi-language application. Much of the app is VB.net and including the .NET assembiles in the setup project works fine.
However, the app also relies on files generated by an external 3rd party tool. The output from this tool is about 300 filesin a single directory .
The names of these files can change so I would like to always include all files from this output directory in the setup MSI file.
How can I do this?
I cannot find anyway to include files using wild cards.
The only way I have been able to get this to work is to manually add each of the 300+ files to the setup project.
I cannot do this because sometimes these files names are changed by the 3rd party tool. This would require the setup project to be modified before each release.
One of my requirements is to create an simple deployment process. The manual nature of this solution does not meet this requirement.

I tried to create a C++ Makefile project in my soution. I was able to configure the makefile project to execute the external tool and generate the output.
I set the NMake Output property to "$(ProjectDir)\bin\*.*"
When I include the Primary Output of this Makefile project in my Setup, I get an error;

Invalid characters in the output named 'Primary Output from SPlus_Functions (Active)' of project output '?????Iuw???E?????..."

The message was tuncated because it include about 17K of giberish that looks like binary data.
Is the Setup Project trying to parse the binary output files from the 3rd party tool?
Do I need to change the configuration of the Makefile project?

Can anyone please help?

---

Mac

Hello McAllister,

Thanks for your post on MSDN forum.

The project file for a setup project(.vdproj) is not documented, thus we cannot add files to a setup project using wild characters. However, Visual C# and Visual Basic project allow us to add files as contents for a project with wild characters. And setup project allows us to add contents of project to the MSI package. Then the workaround comes out, we can add all outputs from a 3rd party compiler to a Visual C# project or Visual Basic project, and then add the contents of the project to our setup project.

To add files as contents to a project with wild characters, we can try something like the following.

<ItemGroup>
<Content Include="readme.txt">
</Content>
<Content Include="MyContents\*.*"/>
</ItemGroup>

More info,
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/646dk05y.aspx

Let me know if this works for you. If you have any additional question, welcome to post here.

Thanks,
Rong-Chun Zhang
MSDN Subscriber Support in Forum
If you have any feedback on our support, please contact msdnmg@microsoft.com

---

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.
Welcome to the All-In-One Code Framework! If you have any feedback, please tell us.

Hello McAllister,

Thanks for your post on MSDN forum.

The project file for a setup project(.vdproj) is not documented, thus we cannot add files to a setup project using wild characters. However, Visual C# and Visual Basic project allow us to add files as contents for a project with wild characters. And setup project allows us to add contents of project to the MSI package. Then the workaround comes out, we can add all outputs from a 3rd party compiler to a Visual C# project or Visual Basic project, and then add the contents of the project to our setup project.

To add files as contents to a project with wild characters, we can try something like the following.

<ItemGroup>
<Content Include="readme.txt">
</Content>
<Content Include="MyContents\*.*"/>
</ItemGroup>

More info,
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/646dk05y.aspx

Let me know if this works for you. If you have any additional question, welcome to post here.

Thanks,
Rong-Chun Zhang
MSDN Subscriber Support in Forum
If you have any feedback on our support, please contact msdnmg@microsoft.com

---

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.
Welcome to the All-In-One Code Framework! If you have any feedback, please tell us.

Hello McAllister,

It has been several days, did you get any progress on this issue? If there is anything else we can help, welcome to post here.

Thanks,
Rong-Chun Zhang
MSDN Subscriber Support in Forum
If you have any feedback on our support, please contact msdnmg@microsoft.com

---

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.
Welcome to the All-In-One Code Framework! If you have any feedback, please tell us.